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hey this is Leo for actualised org and in this video I'm talking about spiritual enlightenment and specifically how to go about creating an actual experience of no self the objective of this video is to create a real experience of no self so this is a somewhat advanced thing here and I'm not going to go into a lot of foundation about what spiritual alignment is so if you are hearing this for the first time what is this thing called no self what is this thing called spiritual alignment then you got to go watch some of my earlier more introductory videos about that which you can find on my channel but in this video I'm not going to spend a lot of time covering theory what I want to do is I want to tell a little bit of theory but then jump right into a guided meditation where we're going to try to get you a real little taste of no self not real enlightenment but just like a little taste of it so that this starts to feel real for you because it's really important that enlightenment is not confused with some philosophy or some religious system or some way of theorizing about the world but recognizing that this is an actual fact an empirical fact that you can experience right now it's happening for you every second of your life the only question is are you conscious of it so here we're going to try to quiet your mind down so you can become conscious of it if only for a couple of minutes so what we're gonna do here is we're gonna show you the truth of no self what is this truth well to recap from all the other videos the truth of no self basically means that the entity that you believe is you which is the entity that's experiencing all of life that's perceiving the sound of my voice right now that's looking at me if you're watching me on video that's feeling your body that's thinking things that that entity that that's an illusion of the mind that's not a real entity and that this is the mother of all truths and this is like the key that unlocks the highest most advanced levels of personal development and self-actualization that you can get to in life right this is the key that unlocks it all this is the mother of all truths this is what is behind all your neuroses in life all your fears all your frustrations your inability to be happy all the problems you have in relationships all the problems you have motivating yourself and being productive in your life it all boils down basically to this fundamental root problem the problem is that you believe that you are this entity but this entity doesn't actually exist so what we want to do in spiritual enlightenment work is we want to undertake a empirical investigation using our senses and using first-hand experience to actually discover for ourselves that it in fact is the case that there is no self because it's one thing for me to tell you and you could even agree with everything I'm telling you but that's not going to be good enough you need to actually experience it believing doesn't count for anything here so that's our objective here now this is going to be very practical video in fact you're not going to get much from it unless you actually sit down and do this guided meditation with me so I'm going to guide you through it and we're going to get to that in a couple of minutes after I introduce this topic so find a quiet place find a place where nobody will distract you find a place where you're not going to feel weird doing this all right and if you're driving your car somewhere or whatever then you're going to have to wait to do this when you're at home in a quiet location okay good so the key principle here that I want to really introduce before we get into the guided meditation is this principle that the only thing that is real is what exists right now in the present moment the only thing that is real it was what exists right now for you in your direct experience experience in the present moment now this is a very important principle and right now I'm not going to go into length proving it to you right you're just going to have to take it on my word that this principle is the correct principle right one of the problems with doing spiritual alignment work is that people look for proofs and they want justifications but all that stuff really to us is not important because we're going to cut through all that [ __ ] and we're going to get straight to the direct experience so we're not going to need a lot of justifications and all that stuff plus I've got other videos that will cover the justifications in the theory in lots of detail so I'm not going to do that in this video I want this video to be very very practical but I want you to take as an axiom this principle because this principle does pretty much all the heavy lifting in this empirical investigation if you just take this one principle and you run off with it and you apply it rigorously again and again and again again in your life you're going to become enlightened right that's the power of this principle the trick is that right now if you haven't done this work then you don't realize the power that lays in this principle again reality is only what exists right now right this second in your awareness right in your awareness this means that if you have some idea about how reality is if you're thinking two minutes into the future if you're thinking about yourself if you're thinking about your family if you're thinking about the person in the next room if you're thinking about the back of your head all those things are not what's actually in your direct present experience meaning that those things are not reality we like to call a lot of things reality which actually are not reality so one of the things that we do with spiritual alignment work is that we get very very rigorous about what we actually define reality as and reality is not the past it's not ten years ago it's not one year ago it's not even five minutes ago it's not even one second ago it's right now this present moment also reality is not future it's not ten years from now it's not one year from now it's not even five minutes from now it's not even one second from now it's right now now this might seem like it's kind of like a pedantic point but this is a very critical point because once you start doing this self inquiry what you're going to discover is that oh my god most of my life I live either in the past or in the future and a lot of times we think well I don't always live in the future but actually we're going to discover is what you mean by future is you mean like a year in the future sure you don't live in a year in the future but the way you run through your day you're usually living five minutes in the future 20 minutes in the future two hours in the future right your mind is just thinking forward all the time or is thinking about the past well what we need to do is we to recognize that that stuff is not reality what that is is that's a figment of our imagination it's like a projection inside the mind of something and we call that reality but that's not really reality and this is really where a lot of the illusion comes into play so that's a very important point right but even in the present moment you might say well Lee okay that makes sense but even when you're in the present moment there's still a lot of thinking that you do in the present moment about whatever you could be thinking about the back of your head right now and believing that that's a real thing but actually what that is is that's a thought an image in your mind of the back of your head which are not actually seeing or experiencing you might be experiencing it if you're feeling the back of your head but you're certainly not seeing it so what we mean by what's actually real is that it has to be felt seen smelled Hurd touched immediately perceived or sensed by you right this very second so if right now you're not experiencing the moon the moon is not real for you if you're not experiencing the Sun the Sun is not real for you if not if you're not experiencing your children or your family it's as though your family doesn't exist it's not real that's what we're saying and this is a radical claim to make and you might wonder well are we even justified in making such a claim and what I'm going to say right now is that just go along for the ride with me because it's not about justification it's about where we're going to ultimately go using this little tool and this tool is not to be taken as gospel it's simply just a tool that's going to help us to get to some really cool place experientially so the important thing here is that enlightenment is experiential right experience enlightenment is about actually being the truth that we're looking for it's not about a logical rational understanding we're not trying to model reality here we're not trying to outsmart some other person or trying to come up with a better theory of life than we had in the past that's not what we're trying to do this is a very big trap that a lot of people get caught up in very very big trap and just because I warned you about it doesn't mean you're not going to fall into it so I'm going to keep warning again and again and again some of this stuff might seem like I'm being repetitive but this is just the nature of the work right because there's not much substance in spiritual alignment it's very simple you just be the truth very simple the problem is that we need to kind of move in circles around and around and around until your mind starts to get what we're actually referring to here we're referring to very basic and simple things understand that existence itself is not a rational thing you could use your rationality to think about life and to come up with the laws of physics and all this stuff but the fact that something exists in reality the very fact that reality itself is real and it exists this is not a rational thing this is not something that you can use your logic on this is not something you can think about it doesn't make any logical sense that something exists versus that it does not it makes no sense it just exists we just happen to find ourselves in this amazing reality and we tell ourselves that we know so much about reality and in a sense we do but in another sense we don't really know what the existence of it is we know how to manipulate reality but that's a very very different thing than understanding the existence of reality itself which is what we're trying to get out with spiritual enlightenment because we're not only concerned with the existence of reality but also even primarily concerned about what is our personal existence Who am I what am I really am I the body am I the thoughts in my mind am i the voice in my mind am i the thing that's perceiving all these sensations what actually am I now this might seem like it's an obvious thing well I'm this creature standing before you or I'm this creature sitting over there well it turns out that it's not quite so simple and in fact you're not that creature and that you even presently don't believe really that you're that creature but you're just confused about it so what we're going to demonstrate what I want to demonstrate to you in this video with this practical exercise that we're going to do is that enlightenment is not a philosophy it is not a theory it is not a religious system it is not a belief and it is not a scientific model it is none of those things we should really pique your curiosity because then you would wonder well Leo then what exactly is it how could it not be one of those things everything that I've known in my life is one of those things what you're proposing here either you're masquerading as something else but it's actually one of these things or it's actually really something totally different what could that be I can't even imagine because anything that I can imagine is going to either be a theory a philosophy a belief system a religion or a scientific model what else is there well that's a very very good question and I want to demonstrate to you what else there is what there is besides all that stuff is there is reality itself there is being being as in to be this is the thing that all those other things are trying to describe and what we want to do is we want to eliminate all the middlemen and we want to go directly to the being without any intermediary so we're not going to use a philosophy or a theory or a model or even plot to get there because if we're using thought and that's basically what all these different things are theories and philosophies and religions and scientific models they're all thoughts the problem with thoughts is that if you're thinking thoughts then you're not actually being the reality you're just thinking about reality wouldn't it be cool if you could be reality itself without thinking about it now that might seem irrational that might seem crazy that might seem like it's impossible but I want to suggest to you that actually it might be possible just that you haven't really practiced doing this before and that no-one's really taught you how to do this before so you've never really had one of these kinds of experiences you've never really had a true experience of being what you've had 99.99999% of your time in life is an experience of thinking of conceptualizing of modeling of theorizing of philosophizing of religious sizing and every other kind of izing that you can come up with all of it basically thoughts so we want to do is we want to cut through all that so now I want to start this meditation process I'm going to guide you through what you're going to do is you're going to just sit very comfortably it's going to be enjoyable process you're gonna sit very comfortably and I'm going to take you through this thing and it's going to take maybe 10 or 15 or 20 minutes I'm not sure how long it'll take but we're going to guide you through and what I want to help you do here is I want to help you actually get a little taste of an experience of no self this is an experience of what it's like to not be a self but to be the actual reality that we're trying to really understand all that the word understand is not a very accurate word here we're trying to understand this without thinking about it which is tricky because you don't know how to understand something without thinking about it in your life in your life you've never done this so before I begin I want to give credit to Peter Ralston who I got a lot of great ideas and information from about enlightenment so I'm he's one of my favorite thinkers about this topic and some some of his guided meditation sessions were really helpful to me so I was really inspired by that so let's go ahead and begin go ahead and take a comfortable seat I want you to sit with your back straight and upright get comfortable put your feet flat on the ground and close your eyes and we'll begin make sure that you're in a quiet spot and that no one's going to interrupt you for at least 10 to 20 minutes ok good go ahead and close your eyes now as you do that I want you to relax your body just a little bit start relaxing all the muscles relax your face relax your legs relax your stomach go ahead start to bring your attention in the present moment in the moment of right now not a second ago not a second later but right now notice all the sensations in your body all the feelings all the emotions all the thoughts any issue might have any pressure in your body you might have any feelings of warmth or coldness I want you to feel all of that feel the pressure of your butt on the seat that you're sitting on don't think about it just experience it experience it as a raw sensation good now experience the sensation of the soles of your feet on the ground or whatever surface they're touching experience that right now that experience is happening for you in the present moment every experience that you experience is happening only in the present moment good notice that you didn't notice these sensations previously five minutes ago when you were watching my video you were totally unaware of all this stuff but now you're in the present moment and you're starting to get a sense that these things are happening to you every millisecond these sensations are morphing and changing and evolving and changing how they feel so just go with that flow whatever it is for you and just allow it to be and just accept it can you allow yourself to accept the present moment exactly as it is even if it's not perfect even if you have some lingering worry in the back of your mind about some problem that you have in life go ahead and just let that go just for now just for a few minutes you can always come back to it and they need worries you have about the future go ahead and let that go too and just converting the present moment start feeling your body without moving can you sense your feet just how your feet feel can you sense your legs your lower legs and your upper thighs go ahead and sense them right now good now since you're but sitting on the seed just feel it whatever feels like good now since your lower back and sense your stomach and your ab muscles without moving them just cents good now bring your awareness up to your upper back and your shoulder area and also your front chest muscles just sense all that notice how the sensation is happening without your control you're not controlling it you're not manipulating it it's just happening you don't need to think about it you don't need to make it happen it's just happening good now since your shoulders and your upper arms down through your elbow and into your forearms since all that good and now since your hands the tendons in your hands the muscles in your hands the palms of your hands and all the way through to your fingertips without moving just sense that good now since your neck muscles and move that awareness up into your jaw and into the front of your face feel the sensations the raw sensations in your facial muscles and go ahead and completely relax all of them make your jaw very loose relax your face so it's totally comfortable good now go ahead and take one really deep nice breath in at your own pace inhale slowly and then exhale slowly good relax your body as you do that go ahead and relax your body right now even more than already is feel all the tension melting away from your body and you're becoming very still very calm very centered in the present moment very in touch with existence notice that all these raw sensations that you're feeling that this is raw existence don't think about it just feel it just notice it experience it existence is experience good now going to take one more nice really deep breath in calmly and then exhale and as you exhale relax your body completely good let's have you take one more nice steady calm deep breath in and then as you exhale relax every single muscle in your body until you're completely and totally relaxed very good now let your breath breathe automatically for you without having to control it notice how the breath just breathes for you without you having to will anything now there's a certain raw sensation to the breath good now also notice your heart beating inside your body what that feels like can you feel it good notice that this happens again automatically without any conscious control from you good now what I'm going to have you do is I want to have you imagine some things and I want to have your mind be very calm and very still and very tranquil and Placid like a still pond without a single ripple on it as you go and you imagine these things and I want you to just accept what I'm going to tell you and just go with the flow and just see where it takes you if you're comfortable just go with the flow don't think about it too much I want you to imagine right now that the point from where you're sitting in the present moment all the way into the past back all the way to the moment that you were born that all that time never even existed just erase it from your memory as though it never even existed it's just not real good now what I want you to do is I want you to picture all the time from the present moment to tomorrow to next year all the way to the very end of your life that you can envision all the plans that you have your entire calendar your work week your schedule and all the huge big goals you have for your future erase all of that from your mind just make it a like pretend like it never even existed that it will never exist total fiction could now notice that that leaves you very centered and very present in the moment the word past doesn't even exist in your mind the word future doesn't exist in your mind all there is is what's exactly happening moment by moment by moment as I'm speaking and as you're feeling all the sensations in your body good now imagine that all the possessions that you have your house your furniture your car anything else that you own your bank account all the money in it take every single possession that you own and imagine in your mind that they just don't exist just completely erased from reality they don't exist they never even existed can you allow yourself to imagine that good total blank spot as far as possessions go now I want you to imagine your job or if you're a student imagine your school or any other social obligations that you have imagine the schedule you have for the next week or the next month in your imagination I want you to completely erase these things imagine as though they don't exist and they never existed at all poof gone good now I want you to imagine all of your social roles that you play in life I want you to imagine your friends and your family the people around you your relationship maybe your husband or your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend I want you to imagine that none of this exists take it from your mind and just totally erase it it doesn't exist and it never existed total blank and this feels fine you're not threatened by this it's just a total blank now I want you to imagine the society that you live in the culture that you live in any societal obligations that you have imagine that the society in this culture just is a complete blank it doesn't exist and it never existed at all totally gone from your mind doesn't influence you anymore at all culture doesn't influence you society doesn't influence you imagine that you have absolutely no social responsibilities you have no social role whatsoever good now imagine all the personal worries that you have in your life all the concerns that you have whether about money or relationships or your health or your career or your business or your personal development take all of those and imagine that they don't exist and they never even existed no worries no concerns no fears all of it just has been erased from your mind imagine that you have no personal concerns whatsoever good notice how good it feels how calm and peaceful it feels so just keep going with it allow yourself to just play along and you just go with the flow even though it might seem a little unorthodox or weird to be imagining these things now imagine that all the beliefs that you have about life all the scientific beliefs you have all the religious beliefs all the spiritual beliefs all the everyday common most basic beliefs that you have about life things that you believed because other people have told you about them theories that you have about how life works and how things should be I want you to imagine that all of this is just completely gone poof erased as though it never even existed good imagine also that any traditions that you have these are also all erased as though they never existed good now I want you to imagine that any emotions that you've had in your life or any emotions that you presently feel or think you might feel that all these emotions are completely gone now and they've been completely erased no happiness no sadness no excitement no loneliness no fear no anger no frustration all of it just gone there are no more emotions imagine that emotions never even existed in reality good now I'd like you to imagine that any opinions that you have about life or about yourself or other people and any conceptualizations that you have any theories you create any stories in your mind about what reality is or how it works that all of these are now gone erased as though they never existed you've just completely released opinions you don't need opinions anymore good now I want you to imagine that thoughts no longer exist literally any thought about anything does not exist anymore it's just gone from your mind as though it never existed as though we lived in a reality where thoughts do not exist good good now notice without thinking because thoughts no longer exist so as you're listening to me you're not thinking about anything you're just existing you're just being right now you're just experiencing whatever experience is coming to you right now in this very very moment good now imagine that there is no self-image anymore there's no picture in your mind of you there's no more picture in your mind of your body or of your name or of your personal history or your social connections or your relationship to reality or your position in life imagine that your self-image is just completely erased it doesn't exist as though it never existed good good can you feel the sensations and experiences right now in the present moment the sights through your closed eyelids the colors the feelings in your body the sounds of my voice other sensations you might have smells pressure in your body pressure in your mouth of your teeth and your tongue imagine that these things are just existing pure existence not even part of your self-image because the self image has been erased so what are these things really take a look at your sensations right now without thinking about them and get very curious and ask yourself what are these things what are these sensations these colors these sounds allow yourself to experience them as though you're experiencing them for the very first time as though they're completely new and fresh and alien to you take all the beliefs and assumptions and opinions that you have and thoughts about these sensations and just erase them all from your mind as though they never existed and just feel the sensations and wonder what are these sensations I mean what are they really what are they why do they exist how can they exist good and now imagine that these sensations exist without an observer observing them without a you feeling them but that they are just free-floating experiences that they're just like a torrent of law experience without anyone experiencing them so what this makes them is this makes them the raw fabric of existence imagine that existence just exists without reasons without logic without explanation without even an observer without you what if you weren't some thing that was experiencing life and all these raw sensations but that what you call you was actually simply the sum total of every raw sensation that's being felt right now that you were not simply some aspect of these sensations like the bodily aspect or the mental aspect but you were the entirety the whole universe of sensations right now that's being felt that's existing right now and imagine that you could exist without being a you can you allow yourself to not be any thing in particular not a body not a mind not a thought not a word not an image but on nothing can you allow yourself to be nothing who are you really if we strip away everything that we've stripped away if we strip away all your possessions and all your friends and family and your cultural influences in society and your traditions and your personal worries and beliefs and emotions and thoughts remember all these things are gone now they don't exist even the self image the image you have of yourself in the body occupying the body this also doesn't exist anymore even the notion that you are experiencing my voice right now and that you are experiencing sitting on this seat and feeling that pressure on your butt and on your feet and on your legs that it's not you feeling that if we strip all of that away what's left if all our opinions about reality are gone and all our preconceived assumptions and all our thoughts and all our theories are gone what's left don't think about it just experience what's left can you allow yourself to experience reality exactly as it is without any filters without any assumptions without any thoughts without needing reality to be any particular way take a moment right now to accept exactly what you're experiencing it whatever it is even if it feels uncomfortable or unpleasant or whatever just allow yourself to accept it completely because this is reality this is existence itself good just take a moment to feel this in silence and if you're having any thoughts stray thoughts coming up allow yourself to accept those two and just to feel those for the raw feeling that a thought is thoughts feel a certain way allow yourself to accept that very good the question is what is your most essential and fundamental nature who are you existentially what are you do you even exist or is all that exists is raw experience without even an observer experiencing the experience take a look without thinking without any prejudice about how you believe reality ought to be or how you believe it really is remember leave those aside those are all erased and just bask in that raw experience and accept whatever comes up can you feel how calm and peaceful you are right now being totally in the present moment can you feel how pleasant it is simply to exist can you allow yourself to just be happy right now with reality exactly as it is don't you feel complete right now in the present moment without needing anything at all don't you feel perfectly confident perfectly secure perfectly content perfectly at ease without needing anything you don't need a relationship you don't need money you don't need a new goal you don't need more personal development you don't even need enlightenment just right now in the present moment allow yourself to be calm and content and happy acknowledge to yourself that mere existence is enough to be happy the mere fact of existing you might not even know exactly what is existing who is this entity that exists because we stripped away everything that you thought was you all those things we've stripped away those were not you including your self-image including the picture you have in your mind of your body and of the back of your head and of this entity who's listening to my voice right now what if the voice that you were hearing right now was not something that you were hearing but it was something that simply existed and that you were it you're not hearing this voice you are the voice because you are everything that is being experienced you are the entirety of experience there is no Center to you wherever the experience is that's where you are good I'm going to give you a few more seconds to bask in that emptiness notice how pleasant the emptiness is how fulfilling and how peaceful it is good now on the count of three you're going to take three nice deep breaths in at your own pace and then you're going to open your eyes one two three take three nice deep breaths and then open your eyes good welcome back so that was a little guided meditation and that's a meditation that can produce an experience of no self now there's no guarantees everyone is very different some people might have had a very powerful experience of no self others might have had monkey chatter the whole time and not really been able to experience anything others might have been resisting the whole time or coming up with objections or been feeling emotions of various kinds or they may have been distracted not been able to focus whatever if you weren't really able to focus and you felt distracted in your mind was all over the place then what I encourage you to do is I'll encourage you to go through this exercise again as many times as necessary until you can get up some sort of real calm very peaceful very content state a state that you might call no self a state where you as an entity D materialize and when that happens you merge with raw experience with existence itself this state can only be experienced without any thoughts prejudices opinions assumptions social roles that you play or any other images that you have of yourself you can't be attached to any of that you can't be attached to your emotions to your thoughts your beliefs to your possessions to your position in life the reality is that what you really are whether you've experienced it yet or not is you are nothing an emptiness which allows you to be reality itself but what happens is that you I identify yourself with a particular small section of this whole giant experience which you call your body and your thoughts and your mind you identify yourself just with this which precludes you from being what's out there and so this distinction gets created between I'm here everything else is out there but what you'll notice if you go through these kinds of exercises is that that distinction can blur and can merge and actually can completely be erased not because it's some fancy mental technique but actually because it's the truth and that what your present existence and way of living is socially your current life what that is is that's putting on garments on top of the Invisible Man you are really fundamentally essentially existentially really the Invisible Man but because the Invisible Man can't be seen what you do is you have to put on garments socks and jackets and pants and shirts and hats and glasses and jewelry you do this because when you put all those things on you can look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that's me but what's very interesting is that it's also possible to start stripping those things away take off every one of those pieces to see that they're not essentially you that in fact they're just little garments and artifacts very silly little things very arbitrary little things you totally you totally could have been wearing a different hat and it would have made no difference to your essential nature which opens the very profound question of what is your essential nature if it's none of those garments and that's the question that I want to leave you on in this video that is the question of spiritual enlightenment that is not a question that can be answered through logic or through rationality or through theorizing or through philosophy or religion or through prayer or any other external action it can only be realized by honestly very honestly extremely honestly radically honestly looking inside to see what's really there not what you think is there not what you want to be there not what other people told you is there not what makes sense to be there but what's actually there you